Recent Posts

Most employment interviews are a waste of time. Candidates
think they’re about correctly answering the interviewer’s
questions and interviewers think they’re designed to figure out
if the candidate meets the requirements listed in the job
description. They’re not.

Given that the common and traditional interview is flawed,
including the vaunted behavioral interview (see below), what is a
job-seeker, hiring manager, recruiter or anyone on the
interviewing team to do? I suggest all parties take a page from
any well-trained sales department and convert the employment
interview into a discovery call. Here’ssalesforce.com’s blog
describing this core activity. In essence, the idea is to use
the sales call to find out the customer’s needs and then craft a
solution that demonstrates your product is a perfect fit.
Whatever side of the desk you're on, this is what interviewing
should be about.

During the interview the buyer and seller roles often switch, so
conducting parallel discovery can become a bit unnerving –
similar to dating. Regardless, here are the basic steps.

The Discovery Process for the Job-seeker

Step 1: Find out what's being sold. Don’t assume the person
interviewing you is competent. If the interviewer is either
box-checking skills, asking pointless questions, or asking
brainteasers, begin your discovery right away. This starts by
asking questions at the beginning of the interview to uncover
real job needs. Here are some questions that will get you
started:

What’s the focus of the job?

What are some big problems or issues the person will face
right away?

How will performance be measured?

Are there any team related challenges?

Why is the position open?

Step 2: Prove you're the solution. Once you have some
understanding of the job, you’ll then need to describe some past
accomplishment that demonstrates you’re capable of doing the work
required. Use the SAFW two-minute response to form your answers.
This involves providing a 1-2 minute overview of a major past
accomplishment with just enough details to naturally prompt the
interviewer to ask some clarifying follow-up questions. You’ll
need to do this for at least 2-3 of the most important aspects of
the job during the interview in order to “win the sale.”

Step 3: At the end of the interview ask for the order, or at
least find out the next steps. Something like, “Based on what
we’ve discussed, do you think my background is a good fit for the
position? (Pause) What are the next steps in the process?” If you
are a good fit for the job, the interviewer will be specific
about the next steps. A vague response is not a good sign.

Step 3: Early in the interview find out why the candidate is
looking for another job, most likely it’s something involving
economic need or lack of sufficient career growth. You’ll use the
balance of the interview to determine if your position meets
these needs. This will be essential for negotiating the offer,
especially if the person is a passive candidate and/or has
multiple opportunities.

Step 4: Validate what you're buying. Use The Most Interviewer
Question of All Time and the associated fact-finding
questions to find out if the candidate is competent and motivated
to do the actual work required. This involves describing one of
the performance objectives and then asking the candidate to
describe a comparable accomplishment. You’ll need to do this for
the 3-4 most important performance objectives to make an accurate
assessment. From this you’ll be able to determine if the gap
between what you’re offering and what the candidate has done is a
career move, a lateral transfer or something below or beyond the
candidate’s current abilities.

Step 5: Determine thinking skills. Rather than using brainteasers
to figure out thinking and problem-solving ability, ask about a
real problem the person in the role is likely to face. (This is
the second half of the two-question Performance-based Interview.)
The purpose is to get into a back-and-forth dialogue to determine
if the candidate’s approach to solving the problem is
appropriate. Focus on the process of getting the answer, not the
answer itself. Then Anchor the question by getting an example of
what the person has done that's most comparable to the problem
being discussed. (See Anchor and Visualize questioning pattern.)

Whether you’re on the hiring or job-seeking side it’s important
to recognize that an interview is a sales call. While figuring
out who’s the buyer and seller is a function of supply and
demand, meeting the performance objectives for the job is what’s
being bought and sold. Unfortunately, too many companies,
job-seekers and interviewers lose sight of the core purpose of
the interview. You won’t, if you put yourself in the shoes of a
top sales rep on a 100% commission plan, and are always fully
prepared.